Click Tip - Archive: September 2013

When you are running a PPC campaign, it is vital to keep an eye on what the competition is doing. Yet, outside of staring at their ads when they pop up on your computer screen, many PPC campaigners have no idea how to spy on the competition. . Keep one important fact in mind as you proceed, just because the competition is doing it does not necessarily make it right.

Creating Your PPC War Plan

The first step in spying on your competition is to create a successful plan. This plan should be composed of three essential elements: the right information, the right tools, and the right timing. After all, you are commencing to wage war on your completion.

1. Collecting the Right Information

Before you are ready to wage war on your completion, you must know what they are doing right and wrong. Since you may have many competitors to take on, it is essential that you identify your top three competitors.

After you have identified your top three competitors, then you are ready to collect the information that you will find most useful about them. Some suggestions include:

Many people collecting this information find it useful to put the information into a table and give each competitor a ranking, so you can see at a glance what PPC company is excelling in what area.

2. Choosing Your PPC Ammunition

After you have collected the information on your competitors, then it is time to choose the tools that you want to use to identify what you need to do better. The great news is that many of these tools are free. Some suggestions include:

AdWords Auction Insight Tool

By using this tool, included in your AdWords account, you can learn a lot about your competition. Try tracking it over the course of 30 or 90 days, and you will know a lot more about your completion. Some of the information that you can learn includes:

• When your competition spends the most money
• Whether there position is improving or if they are losing market share
• Which niche keywords your competition is not using yet
• What company owns what keywords
• Identify negative marketing
• Learn how much to pay Google

AdWords Preview and Diagnostic Tool

Like the AdWords Auction Insight Tool, this tool is located right in your AdWords account. You can learn a lot by using this tool. Some of the information that you can learn includes:

• What Ad Words site links are showing for a keyword
• What geography the ad is shown in
• Whether the ad copy from the description lines are showing in one line or two

Once you become comfortable using these tools, then you might want to consider using some of the other top tools on the market like Spyfu.com, SEMrush.com, and Adgooroo.com.

3. When to do the Spying

Now that we have covered what information you need to collect and what tools are available to aid you in your spying efforts, we have one more thing that you need to carefully consider. You need to decide when is the correct time to do your spying to make it the most valuable to you.

Immediately- There is no time like the present to consider what the competition is doing, so if you have never done it before, make sure to do it right now.

Quarterly- After your first attempt to spy on your enemies, oops, we mean competitors, and then make sure to do it on a quarterly basis. Reviewing what your competition is doing on a quarterly basis allows you to figure this information into your own quarterly plans.

Seasonally- If you are using PPC that is affected by the season, and then make sure that you check the competition at the beginning of the season. Position yourself so that you will stay competitive throughout the season.

Go ahead and spy on your competitors. You may be surprised what you find out. Remember to start by looking for the right information by using the right tools at the right time. , This is the first step in planning your strategy for your PPC war.

If you aren't already advertising on Facebook Ads then you are missing out! For those of you who already are, then you can truly appreciate the value in creating ad campaigns that get users to click. Facebook Ads runs off a "cost per click" advertising platform, but it really backs out to a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for Facebook. The higher the click through rate you can achieve for your ad campaigns, the lower you will have to pay per click. ZacJohnson.com came up with some quick tips to improve your click through rates and lower costs. Each of these steps is explained below:

1. Target Your Audience

This one is a no brainer. It's not so much to make sure you are targeting the right audience, but that you are really zoning in as much as you can. Facebook allows you to target full demographics for anyone on their site and this also includes "interests". Don't think that women and men all click the same stuff! Create a wide variety of campaigns and play around with your demographics to see which get the best click through rates.

2. Split Testing Your Ads

One of the great things about Facebook Ads is that it allows you to send a massive amount of traffic to your ads fast. This means you can do a decent amount of split testing in a short period of time and you also won't have to spend much money. For best results setup as many campaigns as you can with different images and ad copy. Let these ads run for a bit, but set a very low daily budget. Once you have a good idea on the type of click through rate and conversions these ads are pulling, delete the bad ones and keep tweaking the best ones to improve your numbers.

3. Play Around With Images

The images you use in your Facebook Ads is what is really going to get the most attention. Try messing around with your images and see what gets people to click. I've seen great results with adding my own borders, using upside down images and trying pictures of people looking in different directions. You'll be surprised at what gets the most clicks!

Hopefully you've found these tips useful. Be sure to always split test and play around with your ad campaigns while also adding new ones all the time. The last thing you want is for people to keep seeing the same ads and it ends up just costing you extra money!